Gas turbine engines, such as those which power aircraft and industrial equipment, employ a compressor to compress air that is drawn into the engine and a turbine to capture energy associated with the combustion of a fuel-air mixture.
Referring to FIG. 2A, a prior art sync ring assembly 200 is shown. The assembly 200 is formed from sync rings 204a and 204b. The sync rings 204a and 204b are coupled to one another via clevises 212a and 212b. Conventionally, the sync rings 204a and 204b are made of steel and the clevises 212a and 212b are made of nickel.
FIG. 2B illustrates a clevis (e.g., clevis 212a) of the assembly 200 of FIG. 2A. As shown, the clevis includes stand-offs 222a, 222b, and 222c at/proximate a first end 224 of the clevis. The stand-offs include holes to seat fasteners (not shown) for coupling the clevis to a sync ring (e.g., sync ring 204a—see FIG. 2A). The clevis also includes a wall 232 in proximity to the stand-offs 222a-222c. FIG. 2C illustrates a cross-section of the clevis of FIG. 2B taken about the line 252a-252b. The reasons for the inclusion of FIG. 2C will become more apparent in the description to follow.
During engine operation, the assembly 200 may experience one or more deflections during a surge condition (where the surge condition may be in response to one or more changing environmental conditions, operator/pilot inputs, etc.). In order to maintain the structural and functionality integrity of the engine, the assembly 200 may be required to provide an associated degree of stiffness to counter/resist the tendency to deflect during the surge condition.
Accordingly, what is needed is a sync ring assembly that has greater stiffness to reduce the magnitude of the deflections experienced by the sync ring assembly during engine operation. Furthermore, a reduction in weight of the sync ring assembly would promote engine efficiency/performance in terms of, e.g., thrust specific fuel consumption.